OLYMPIA — For Rep. Joel Kretz and many hunters, using tracking dogs in cougar hunts is an ethical, effective way to control the state’s mountain lion population. To animal-rights activists, it’s a cruel and unfair practice.
Now a measure being considered in Olympia has pitted these two sides against each other again, riling up feelings left over from a heated fight 12 years ago over a state initiative that banned the use of hounds in hunts of cougars, bears and bobcats.
Last week, the House approved a measure sponsored by Kretz that would extend an existing pilot program that allows hunters to use hound dogs in cougar hunts.
Animal-rights activists cried foul, proclaiming in an e-mail that House Speaker Frank Chopp supervised a back-room deal that didn’t include input from those against the measure. The deal was an amendment that changed the bill from permanent implementation to a three-year extension.
Big Wildlife, the organization that sent out the release, retracted its comments this week, saying it now only criticizes Chopp for allowing the bill get a floor vote.
The measure now heads to the Senate, where it is scheduled for a hearing in the Natural Resources Committee.
The bill would extend the program for another three years on top of the four years it has existed and it would allow all counties to join the pilot project. Currently, only five counties in northeastern Washington are included.
“Our bottom line, seven years of killing cougars is not a pilot project,” said Inga Gibson, director of the Humane Society in Washington state. “It’s continued sport hunting of these animals. It’s against the will of Washington voters.”
In 1996, using television commercials that depicted graphic images of hound hunts, a coalition of animal-rights groups fiercely backed Initiative 655, pouring money into the campaign to ban the practice. They were successful, with 63 percent of voters in the state approving the ban.
The initiative banned the use of hound dogs for sport hunting, but allowed tracking dogs to trap or kill problematic animals.
The defeat left hunting supporters reeling, prompting Democrat and Republican lawmakers to introduce bills through the years attempting to circumvent the initiative. They were finally successful in 2004, when the pilot project allowing hound hunts in northeastern Washington cleared the Legislature.
But the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s statewide response to the initiative was even more dramatic, rolling back restrictions on cougar hunts after the initiative passed, lowering the cost of permits from $24 to $5, extending the hunting season by four months, and the number of kills allowed per hunter.
The policy change led to an exponential spike in cougar kills, from around 145 in 1997 to 300 in 2001. Since then, kills have leveled off, with the 2004-2005 season reporting about 200 kills, according to department figures.
“Fish and Wildlife just hates people’s initiatives,” Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish. “They think they are the God of wildlife and they should be the only ones to do anything. They have actively worked against the people’s will anytime they can.”
If both sides agree on something, it’s the criticism of the way the Department of Fish and Wildlife handled cougar hunts.
“The real mission of the hound component is a more of a targeted (hunt), instead of issuing a lot of permits,” Kretz said.
After the pilot program was passed, the Department of Fish and Wildlife scratched the expansions in the five counties under the pilot program.
Kretz, R-Wauconda, said tracking cougars with hounds allows a hunter to pick the right cougar to kill. And the use of dogs even without a successful hunt, Kretz said, conditions cougars to fear humans, which might keep them away from populated areas. The pilot program also established a quota to protect female cougars from being overhunted.
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